My son is working out of town, so I’m taking care of his chickens, plants, and cockatoo from hell. Harley the cockatoo is always excited to see me because he’s going to get a nice piece of finger for dinner. He stations himself directly between his water and food bowls because my fingers are going to have to reach in to grab both to fill them up, and he wants to be optimally placed for his attack. I think he’s misnamed. He should be named Rommel or Patton or Sun Tsu because he’s obviously thought over this strategy for awhile. He probably sits around all day just planning his attack for when I come in the afternoon.
I was able to distract him enough to keep my fingers intact while changing out the water but, while changing out the food, he bit deeply into my thumb and removed a rather large triagular-shaped piece. Little bastard. I had to go into Winn Dixie and do some grocery shopping with a bloody thumb slowly dripping onto my clothing.
Son says that he’s always afraid when I call that I’ll tell him that I went to his house and found that poor little Harley has gone to bad bird heaven sometime during the day. Grrrrr. I couldn’t be that lucky.
Maybe I should play him some music so that he could dance himself into exhaustion.
A1A South 
kcduffy said,
April 16, 2012 @ 6:35 am
I’ve never had a cockatoo, but I did have a cockatiel a long time ago, and I had lovebirds when we were in California. Have you tried wearing rubber gloves? Not the big bulky ones, but like my dentist uses? They give some protection…maybe not enough from the big birds…
kae said,
April 16, 2012 @ 8:11 am
An old recipe for parrot.
Boil the birds with a rock.
When the rock is soft, eat the rock.
kae said,
April 16, 2012 @ 8:14 am
Gives the iPhone app “Angry Birds” a whole new meaning.
I was bitten by a galah which was injured. The bastard brought up a blister so big… I wanted to snap his head of. Nasty l’l f’ker.
Ahem.
swampie said,
April 16, 2012 @ 5:44 pm
I had a lovebird once, too. Most misnamed creature EVER. HATE birds would be more like it.
I went over and was going to refill his food bowl today, and he tried to get my finger again. He can eat the crumbs out of the bottom of his bowl as far as I’m concerned. No food for HIM.
jendaisy said,
April 16, 2012 @ 8:29 pm
Kill. the. Bastard! Feed him to swampdog!
swampie said,
April 17, 2012 @ 5:47 pm
Heh. I brought over my green watering can after work today. He tried to bite me, I shoved the spout in. “SNAKE!” seemed to be his reaction. He hid in the back of the cage while I changed his water and fed him because the Green Snake of Terror was lurking in the cage door.
kcduffy said,
April 18, 2012 @ 6:29 am
See, I KNEW you’d be creative enough to figure out a way, without leaving the feathered freak to starve!
Deborah Leigh said,
April 27, 2012 @ 12:32 pm
Deborah Leigh said…Send him to the White House. Obama will eat anything.
minicapt said,
April 28, 2012 @ 8:47 pm
You could try this, as a threat:
Cheers
swampie said,
April 28, 2012 @ 9:24 pm
Heh. I’ve actually been threatening him with a long-necked beer bottle from SwampSon’s garbage can. It must look sufficiently snake like. He attacks IT instead of my fingers when I show it to him, then goes and hides in his hammock.